


To the Edge of Night

by Jezunya



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Grief, Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, Quest for Mordor, Suicidal Thoughts, no really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 05:36:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9477965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jezunya/pseuds/Jezunya
Summary: Returning to the Shire after the funeral for Thorin and his nephews, Bilbo begins dreaming every night about wandering through some vast, ancient, dwarven kingdom – until he comes upon a certain King Under the Mountain who is grudgingly adjusting to the afterlife in Aulë’s Halls. As Bilbo and Thorin try to the make the most of their unexpected second chance together, Bilbo’s health begins to fail in the waking world, and a dark force reasserts itself in Mordor, leading to another quest across Middle Earth that none of them were counting on…





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I posted the first two chapters of this fic on [my tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/134902157454/to-the-edge-of-night-ch-1) last year & have finally decided to put it up here as well just for simplicity's sake.
> 
> I am not *currently* working on this fic, as school & TUA take precedence at the moment, but this is a project that's very dear to my heart, so I certainly hope/plan to be able to give it my full attention at some point in the future. In the meantime, please enjoy this angsty beginning ;p

It starts the night after the battle, when everything is still blood and frenzy, dwarven soldiers clearing the ground before the mountain, piling up fallen orc bodies to be burned, while humans from Laketown dash about doing the bidding of the elven healers, their arms full of scavenged linen for bandages. Thorin is in the tent at Bilbo’s back, one of the many hastily erected shelters clustered at the foot of the mountain. Gandalf and the elvenking himself are seeing to the terrible wound in his chest, various low chantings and mutterings filtering out through the canvas wall, barely audible over the din of the camp. Bilbo sits just outside, a little way from where the eagle had dropped the two of them after discovering them up on Raven Hill and carrying them down to the camp. The healers had whisked Thorin away almost the moment the two of them had touched solid ground once more, and Bilbo had been left out here without a word.

He squats in the mud at the side of the tent, utterly useless, unable, even, to hold his head up on his neck, the violence and gore of the day, and the tensions of the last days, weeks, _months_ , all of it sitting like a mountain’s weight across his shoulders. He should help, Bilbo thinks listlessly, he ought to get up and do something, _anything_ , to assist in the camp, but he finds he hasn’t the strength to move an inch. Barely has the strength to draw breath, it seems. No one pays him any notice, though, no one chastises him for his languor, or for his presence so near the dwarf king’s side after his rather public banishment, never mind the words that had passed between them up on the Hill. One little hobbit sitting still by himself in an out of the way corner is rather easily overlooked in all the hubbub following such a great battle, after all.

Sleep must take him at some point as evening turns to night, because one moment Bilbo is sitting curled into himself on the dirty ground of the elves’ war camp, and the next he is lying on the floor of a vast stone hall, blinking up at the grand structures above him.

It must be a dream, he decides, because these are certainly not the halls of Erebor, grand though that mountain may be. Huge stone pillars extend off in every direction around him, evenly spaced and intricately carved, like the trunks of some great, precisely kept orchard, though there are no fruit-bearing boughs in sight above him. The pillars disappear into the darkness far above, hiding any hint of a ceiling, though there must surely be one, because this cannot possibly be anywhere else but the inside of a dwarven mountain kingdom.

There are torches set into the corners of the pillars, bright points of gold in the gloom, doing little to actually light the way. It is an odd thing to dream about, especially in such vivid detail – though, Bilbo supposes, being lost and alone and surrounded by dwarven things is hardly a new feeling for him, these days. He hasn’t the energy to try to parse it out any further than that. He doesn’t move, simply remains curled on his side on the floor for some interminable length of time, the stone strangely warm against his cheek, and then he is jostled awake once more.

Dwalin is settling himself down beside Bilbo when he cracks his eyes open, the warrior unmindful of the slowly oozing gash across his own face as he too slumps in the mud, staring at nothing. It is still the deep of night, can’t be much later than when he dozed off – but the tent at Bilbo’s back is dark and silent now where it had previously been full of lanterns and elven chanting.

Bilbo looks back at Dwalin for a long moment, then at Bifur and Balin across the way, the old white-haired dwarf sitting atop a wooden crate with his head in his hands.

He doesn’t need to ask.

The battle is won. Erebor is reclaimed.

And the King is dead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [my tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/139931924994/to-the-edge-of-night-ch-2).

Bilbo dreams of the hall of pillars every time he closes his eyes over the next few days, which is admittedly rather often. Exhaustion seems to nip at his heels no matter how much he sleeps, the lethargy of grief pulling him under again and again even as he attempts to be helpful, attempts to pull his weight amidst all the scurrying big folk. It is so much easier to simply ensconce himself in an out of the way corner, curl in on himself and try to will away the terrible hollow feeling in the center of his chest. No one outside of the Company ever speaks to him then, and even his friends more often than not merely look at him silently, pityingly, before moving on.

Sleep is not exactly a relief, but he can breathe a little easier in his dreams, at least.

The stone of the hall is always warm to the touch, Bilbo finds, unlike anything in the waking world, and it seems to almost beat with vitality under his soles and the palms of his hands. Like a heartbeat. Like good earth ready to spring forth with greenery. For a long while, he simply lies on the floor in the dream, eyes closed and feeling the subtle pulse, the gentle warmth, almost daring to pretend that it is a broad chest he rests against instead, a living heartbeat and a deep, baritone voice humming idly in his ear.

It is the night after the funeral when he finally stands up and begins to explore his dream realm. His eyes feel hot and sandy from weeping, his chest aching dully. He and Gandalf are departing the mountain in the morning. Perhaps that is why Bilbo suddenly feels the urge to move, after he has merely sat here for so very long. Perhaps it is because of seeing Fíli, Kíli, and Thorin that day laid out so perfect and motionless, as though they were but sleeping. Because of the way he had willed them to move, to open their eyes, to _live_.

Whatever the reason, Bilbo cannot bear to remain in one place any longer.

The torches are all much too high for him to reach, but there also doesn’t appear to be any end to them, so he supposes he doesn’t really need to carry one with him. He turns in a slow circle at first, feeling the stone pulse beneath his feet, and then sets out in one direction at random. It feels like hours that he walks, and, indeed, it has been hours when he next wakes.

He bids goodbye to his friends at the front gate, again declines their invitations to stay, just a little while longer, at least until Dain is crowned, at least until spring, at least, at least, at least. He avoids Balin’s quiet, knowing gaze. He and Gandalf set out from the mountain, winding their way down past the newly reinhabited ruins of Dale, around the edges of the Long Lake, towards the river and the forest. Gandalf occasionally tries to engage him in conversation as they walk, and Bilbo’s ingrained politeness forces him to reply, at least to a point. Eventually, they both grow quiet, somber, and thoughtful. They walk through the day, and Bilbo walks through the night as well, always pushing on in his dreams in the same direction through the pillars, picking up where he left off the night before.

He doesn’t know how he knows it’s the same direction, or that he’s even going anywhere at all; in that logic and surety that so often pervades dreams, he simply _knows_.

Gradually, the hall around him does begin to change, as does the beat under his feet. It is not a living pulse like he originally thought, not exactly, but it is an indication of life one way or another: it seems to be the far-off sound of hammers striking anvils, he realizes one night, distant and omnipresent, reverberating in the very stone around him. The high clangs reach his ears at about the same time he begins to notice a change in the shadows above him and in the carvings running up the pillars, the sound of dwarven smiths hard at work echoing and ghostly at first but growing ever closer with each step he takes.

Thranduil’s elves see them through Mirkwood, and then a few days later he and Gandalf crest a small hill in the low, open country, and there before them sits Beorn’s cozy farmstead.

Bilbo is near dead on his feet when the huge skinchanger welcomes them into his home once more. He barely has the energy to properly fuss at Beorn for his habit of sweeping Bilbo up off of the ground and carrying him around like a doll, or to fend off his talk of ‘how peaky the little bunny is looking.’ Really, all he wants is to go to sleep – and _real_ sleep for once, without dreams of walking and walking and more wa—

Oh blast. He must have fallen asleep at the table. A moment ago, Bilbo had been half-heartedly picking at the enormous plate of food Beorn had set before him, but now, here he is, again, in the dimly lit dwarven hall of pillars.

“This is getting just a bit tedious,” he grumbles to himself, climbing to his feet, and then he sighs and starts walking. Always in the same direction, always just a little closer to the sounds in the distance of dwarves happily working and singing and _living_.

Bilbo grimaces, staring down at his feet as he walks. Dreams have meanings, his mother used to tell him. Sometimes, for a few special people, she’d say, they could be portents of future things to come, but much more often, they’re more like a window into your own soul: what you’re worrying about, what you fear, what you want more than anything else.

He swallows, his throat dry and rough even as his eyes begin to prickle. Belladonna Took would have had something to say about these dreams, that’s for sure. Dwarves and mountains and ghostly voices singing of home. What is it that Bilbo wants? It’s not hard to guess.

He is so caught up in his thoughts, in his grief and misery and the bone-deep loneliness, the longing that he knows now will never, ever, be quenched, that he doesn’t realize he’s finally found the end of the hall until he walks face-first into the wall that has suddenly appeared before him.

Bilbo stumbles back, dazed, one hand flying to his surely bruised forehead, and blinks in astonishment at the sight before him. It’s a wall, a wall that Bilbo could swear wasn’t there the last time he’d looked ahead. It’s carved out of the living stone of the mountain, reaching up and up into the darkness just like the pillars that have ended some ten yards back, one smooth, solid expanse of rock but for the vines of gold and silver running through it, the speckling of gems that shine like stars in the torchlight.

And, of course, the door directly in front of him.

It was this door that Bilbo had actually run into. It is tall, wide, and curved at the top, outlined in delicate geometric designs that appear to be made up of some pale silver metal that has been driven into the stone. The same metal is set in the center of the slab that forms the door proper, impossibly thin lines of shining light twisting about each other to form an intricate design. Bilbo has to take a step back to see it properly.

It’s a raven, its wings spread out around its body, reaching upward, as if it has been frozen in the exact moment of taking flight. Each of its feathers is outlined in silver and filled in with some shining black gemstone. Its one visible eye is a bright sapphire. And in its beak it clutches a thin twig, bearing an oak leaf of palest green stone, and, nestled just below, in what Bilbo can confidently identify as topaz and amber, is an acorn.

Bilbo’s hand is shaking as he reaches out to touch it, his fingers just barely grazing across the design – and then the door abruptly swings inward, away from him, opening into the room beyond. He jumps back again, bracing himself for who – or _what_ – ever might be about to emerge and catch him red-handed—

Catch him doing _what_ exactly? Loitering? Lurking? _Exploring?_ This is _his_ dream, Bilbo reminds himself a little forcefully, even as the doorway remains empty. He draws in a deep breath, straightening his spine along with his jacket and waistcoat. No one has more of a right to be here than him, after all, and besides, there isn’t actually anything to be afraid of here. He’s faced down orcs and wargs, goblins, a king of elves, a dragon for pity’s sake! He’s certainly not going to let some figment of his own unconscious mind scold him for wandering about in his own dreams.

No such figment appears to do so, in any case, and so he takes a cautious step forward, creeping through the doorway and peering around at the room beyond.

The first things he notices are the various pieces of metalwork displayed on the walls: shields, armor, swords, axes. A wide display case of iron and glass holds smaller pieces, gemmed boxes and daggers and jewelry, with a coronet made up of surprisingly delicate twists of metal sitting in the place of honor on the top shelf. The pieces on the walls and in the case gleam softly, catching the red-gold light that streams from the far end of the room, where a figure stands silhouetted against the fires of the forge there, bent over a large anvil and swinging a hammer down onto a length of glowing metal.

The dwarf is tall and visibly muscular under his smith’s leathers, large gloved hands expertly gripping the hammer and what might eventually be the blade of a sword. His long dark hair is gathered back in a careful ponytail at the nape of his neck, the twin braids at his temples and the many streaks of silver throughout his thick mane clearly visible to Bilbo even from where he stands across the room.

“I thought I said I didn’t want to be disturbed,” Thorin growls then, jolting Bilbo out of his stunned gaping, and then the dwarf turns towards him with a glower – and freezes, the color draining from his face. They simply stare at each other for a long, silent moment, before Thorin takes a step forward, whispering, “Bilbo?”

And then a large hand lands on Bilbo’s shoulder, shaking him awake.


End file.
